So committed to this relationship

Every few days someone asks me what kind of car I drive. Since I am the paper’s auto critic, the curiosity is only natural, I suppose. I myself would like to go through Robert Hilburn’s music collection or check out Kenneth Turan’s film library.

But cars are not like CDs and videos. Typically, people own only one or two vehicles and they are invested in them, financially and existentially, right up to their necks. Trouble is, they are never entirely sure if the cars they own are the right ones for them -- it’s like married couples sitting together at a party, watching all the other spouses and wondering if they have made the best choice.

When people ask me what I drive they are seeking some expert endorsement, some hieratic wisdom about cars. I wish I had some. The truth is, there is no fool like a car fool.

I own a 1960 MGA 1600, a small, two-seat British roadster with wire wheels, a “triple red” car: red leather seats, red carpet, red paint. And, of course, red ink. The car is worth about $15,000 and I have twice that invested.

Invested. The word makes it sound like I had a plan to recoup the money I spent restoring the car. It doesn’t work that way. Looking for a bargain? Go through Hemmings Motor News’ classified section, or Ebaymotors, and find a show-quality Jaguar E-Type or Studebaker Golden Hawk or Maserati Ghibli SS convertible, any old car so beautiful as to unman one’s reason. On the other end of the transaction you will find some poor knuckle-busting amateur whose love of the car got the better of him. Offer him less than he’s asking. He will take it.

The MG was not my first choice for a four-wheeled toy. I had wanted a 1967 Jaguar E-type Series 1.5, covered headlights, 4.2-liter motor, improved brakes -- car geeks know the car. The coupe, naturally. The roadsters are far too vulgar.

But a decent example of this car can cost $35,000. Double that -- which is the car collector’s ineluctable algorithm -- and I was looking at 70 grand for my weekend tinkering. Also, because of the Jag’s inboard-mounted disc brakes, routine brake service means putting the car up on a lift and maybe dropping the rear end out of it. I don’t have a lift, and even if I did I don’t have a garage to put it in.

The MGA, on the other hand, is undiscovered gold. A decent, restorable specimen of a 1600 -- with the larger 1.6-liter “B” motor and front disc brakes -- can be had for $8,000. And the car is simply gorgeous, with long, well-muscled curves, cut-down doors and a wasp-like tapered tail, the last of the Continental-styled sports cars. There’s a goggled gallantry here, a bugs-in-the-teeth insouciance that makes the car hard to resist. I love it.

The MGA is easy to work on. There is nothing remotely like technology in the car. The ladder-style steel chassis design goes back to before World War II. The engine -- a cast-iron pushrod inline four -- wouldn’t be out of place in a lawn tractor. There are no electronics, only “electrics,” the infamous, demon-haunted Lucas components. It has coil springs in front and leaf springs in back, with old-fashioned lever-arm shock absorbers. The gearbox is a four-speed manual with nonsynchronous first gear. To shift to first, you have to rev the engine slightly while pushing on the gearshift lever and wait for the dog-gear to slide into place.

It’s all very mechanical, very analog. There’s a certain British messiness to the car; some bolts and fasteners are SAE standard, others are Whitworth style, the kind that held together Britain’s Industrial Revolution. The brightwork is plated brass as on an old boat. A comforting simplicity dwells in the MGA, a small island of self-evident problems -- loose wires, slack belts, frozen bolts -- and ready fixes. If only life were so intuitive.

The car is almost indescribably unsafe. It weighs 2,200 pounds and measures 32 inches at the shoulder -- a Hummer H2 could literally drive right over it. If I were ever to hit something head-on, even at low speed, the solid-steel steering column would go through my sternum like a Watusi spear. It had seat belts but I took these out, preferring to die quickly rather than being horribly maimed.

But it drives like a dream. It’s tight and rattle-free -- in part because there’s so little to rattle, like windows or door handles. It has no power assist, of course, so that means driving is always a bit of a wrestling match between me and my fancy Moto-Lita steering wheel. It’s as tail-happy as a sprint car. The hydraulic brakes haul the car down straight and true, though I have to remind myself that the front wheels will lock under hard braking. My right foot has gotten accustomed to anti-lock brakes of modern cars.

Fast? Well, everything’s relative. If I really hammered the car from a standing start I could probably hit 60 mph in about 12 seconds. The fastest I’ve ever gone in the car is 80 mph. It will go faster, but not with me inside. Yet it’s plenty fast to scrimmage with L.A. traffic. And it always looks like a movie star.

I bought the MGA sight unseen three years ago from a dealer in Missouri who assured me it had never been wrecked. Lesson learned. I remember replacing the bushings on the right front suspension and noticing the inner fender was not where it was supposed to be. This dealer also told me the car was the original color. Not true. Here and there the original black paint shows through at the seams, like a bottle-blond’s roots.

So it’s not a collector’s item or a show winner. That’s OK. Neither am I. It’s a car I could tinker with -- break things, fix things -- and not sweat the market value.

Tinker, I have. I replaced the engine with a motor from a 1975 MGB -- an improved power plant with 1800cc displacement and five main bearings. I over-bored this engine to about 1950cc’s; put in custom pistons and rods and a roller-rocker assembly; “ported and polished” the head and intake manifold; put on high-flow K&N; air filters, a set of Jet-Hot coated exhaust pipes and a new exhaust and muffler .... All of which cost about $6,000 and netted me a grand total of maybe 25 horsepower. So now the engine is pushing about 100 horsepower.

As I tally it in my head, the list of modifications is long and embarrassing. What was I thinking? New leather seats and carpet; braided brake cables; electronic upgrades to the ignition and instruments; a complete wiring harness from the headlights to the taillamps, with high-voltage relays and Navy-caliber waterproofing; polyphonic horns.

Polyphonic horns?

I spent two weeks restoring the heater unit in the car, only to realize that the heat from the engine, billowing into the cockpit, was all but unbearable.

I’ve owned the car three years now and have put about 800 miles on it. Now it’s almost exactly the way I want it -- in fact, I’ve run out of things to do to it -- but I rarely drive it much because it’s such a polluting monster. I actually feel quite foolish about this. I remember the day I fired up the new engine and synchronized the twin SU carburetors. I kept waiting for the awful, gas-rich smell to go away until I realized it never would. I just as quickly realized I would always feel guilty about this car.

So now I just work on it, like a ship in a bottle except I’ve climbed into the bottle. Lately I’ve been considering converting the MGA to a battery-electric car. This would be a technical challenge, for sure, and would probably cost me a small fortune.

Such a project would take thousands of Dan-hours of labor, endless days of wrenching and fiddling and pondering, digging through toolboxes and flipping through parts catalogs, just me alone with my car.

Sounds like heaven.

Automotive critic Dan Neil can be reached at dan.neil@latimes.com.